Fighting Inflation (EP.359)

24:25I mentioned like my auto insurance went up, but at the end of the day, it's not that big of a deal to me. I think the home insurance, because it's more costly, that's the place where it stinks for a lot of people. So Jeff Winninger has a chart. Auto insurance inflation continues to outrun general inflation. So he's looking at CPI motor vehicle insurance relative to all CPI items, and it's skyrocketing. And then he's looking at a chart of auto insurance companies relative to the S &P 500, and they're also breaking out. I mean, they're beating the crap out of the index. Conor Sen tweeted, though.

24:56That's surprising because we had the data showing that a lot of these, the profits aren't that great for these companies. Well, the stocks look pretty good. Encouraging news on the auto insurance inflation front from Allstate. Higher premiums and slowing cost growth have improved profitability, making future large premium increases less likely. So hopefully, maybe all this is behind us. Okay, yeah. So progressive over the past year is up 68 % versus a 27 % gain for the S &P. I saw a great meme. You know, the midwit meme. So it's a bell curve and this is for cars. And on the bottom, it says net worth.

25:37And on the poor end and on the mega rich end is Toyota. The tails, right? The tails. Up top, the Midwits, it's BMW, Jaguar, Lamborghini, and Porsche. I like it. Change that to Honda for me, and I'm golden. I thought this was pretty good. I was thinking about people spending money on cars. Not to judge. People can do whatever they want, obviously, with their money. That's the one area where I judge people more than any other. For whatever reason, there's other stuff to judge on, but for some reason, the car is the one that I always look at. And I just wonder, like, how much is that person really saving?

26:16Well, it's interesting because cars are complicated because on the one hand, there are people that genuinely derive pleasure from driving the car, from getting in a nice car, from the social signaling of having the nice car. Right. And so it's complicated. Yeah, that's personality based. I don't get any of that. The only part you like about driving a car is calling the dealership to complain every five months because something goes wrong. But I saw somebody today, I saw an older gentleman get into a really nice and very expensive Range Rover. And I was thinking like, I don't know, are you like too old to be like, look how cool the car I drive is?

26:55But who am I to judge? What's wrong with having a nice car? The person likes the car, it's fine. Here's the thing. When you get older, you shouldn't care what anyone thinks about you. Like the whole middle-aged. But Ben, what if that's the point? What if this guy says, I don't care if you think I'm a prick for driving a nice car. I want to drive a nice car. I did well in life and this is the car that I want to drive. So there's that too. You got to respect that. Yes, I'm fine with that. I just, I'm okay with people driving expensive cars as long as their finances are okay. I just don't want to, I don't want to, that's the one pain point if you're complaining about finances that and you're driving an$80 ,000 truck, that's the problem.

27:33All right, I've been saying, why hasn't inflation changed any behavior yet? Like I've been waiting for this. Where is the consumer behavior? And the Wall Street Journal has been covered. It's here. And I think so the average transaction price on a new vehicle was 46 ,000, almost 47 ,000 in March compared with 39 ,950 three years earlier. Repair and maintenance costs up 8%. Insurance, obviously, as we've known, up 22 % to cope. Many owners are squeezing more life out of their vehicle. U.S. vehicle average age hit a record 12.5 years in 2023, increasing for the sixth straight year. So this was obviously in place before, and I'm sure the inflationary high cost of cars has increased it.

28:08The share of cars that are 10 or more years old climbed 16.9 % in 1977 to 44.2 % in 2022. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that cars are getting better too. We've talked about this in movies. Like when there's a horror movie and the slasher is chasing the person in the 80s and they try to start the car and go, and it wouldn't start. You don't get that anymore with a push button, right? The car starts. There's no cars out there anymore that have rust. It'd be funny, so now with electric vehicles, you turn the car on and you don't know if it's on. That's true. So imagine in a new horror film, the person gets into an electric vehicle and they turn the car on and off because they don't know if it's on or off.

28:45But except for in Audi, I'm not going to say Audi, these cars last longer these days. They're better quality in a lot of cases, right? You can drive a car 200 ,000 miles and it's fine. Here's another one from Wall Street Journal. Consumers are voting with their wallets and some of America's best-known food brands are losing. Coffee drinkers are leaving Starbucks loyalty program. Chips Ahoy cookies are lingering longer on the grocery shelves. Fewer customers are ordering fast food, drive-thrus and kiosks, pressuring companies such as Wendy's and McDonald's. So it's happening. So this is someone from Chips Ahoy.

29:14We have surpassed certain price points, and that is having a big effect. This person, you know, they interview the regular people on the street for the article. It's not that I can't afford it now. It's the frustration that the same meal cost double what it did. I've been waiting for this. It's finally happening. So this is, as far as inflationary signs, this is a great sign. Even if it's...

29:38Michael just took a sip out of like a giant liter of Starbucks. I was saying to Josh that my Starbucks habits have changed. I'm not, I was a 100 % of the year Starbucks drinker every single day. And I'm skipping a few days. I'm probably down to 90%. So I'm changing my habits. My wife certainly is not. But I think if this actually is a real thing, that companies are starting to feel it because they're talking about it in their earnings calls. If they are, even if it's only in the margin, I say that's a great thing. Oh, it's a great thing. For price pressure. Like this is a good news. This is good news for inflation.

30:15Consumers fighting back. Like we can actually have, let's do it. I was early to the front line of fighting back against Chipotle. I put my stick in the sand three years ago. Did I not? Yeah, I don't know. Isn't it impossible to fight against inflation? Like in places like New York and Disney, like you can't fight inflation there. No. It's like you kill a monster and another one comes. Yeah. All right. We have one emailer who is apoplectic that the media is not covering the rising prices and costs and inputs and all that sort of stuff in the healthcare industry. So let us disseminate the message on this person's behalf.

30:52Even after today's wage report, still nobody wants to call a couple hospital administrators just touched base with the crazy dynamic that has occurred since COVID. The largest employment sector in the country with one of the most profound increases in wages I have seen in the last 30 plus years. There has been more six-figure salary nurses created in the last three years versus any other job descriptions combined. Wow. Can't believe I've heard nothing from financial journalists about what is happening with healthcare wages. It's just ridiculous journalistic malpractice. Well, thank you for sharing.

31:21My other healthcare thing, I've been hearing stories from people going and getting testing done and all this stuff, and it seems to be like the wait times are longer and longer and longer. Can our health industry handle 70 million baby boomers who are going to need tons of medical care in the coming 10, 20, 30 years? Isn't that just going to overwhelm hospital systems in this country? Think about how long it takes and how bad the customer service is when you call a doctor's office for something. Like, has there ever been one good customer service experience calling a doctor's office? It's rare when it happens.

31:59No. So unless we have robots that are able to take care of baby boomers in their older years, because they're going to need quality of life, healthcare coverage. You know, that's the basic stuff. But all these other things, how are they not going to overwhelm everything? How are there going to be enough employees to help, and doctors and nurses to help all of the aging boomers? It seems like it's an impossible, right? Yeah, I don't know anything about that. All right. Good chart. What is this? Oh, lumber prices all the way back. Boy, this was a pandemic thing. We talked about this quite a bit back in the day.

32:30And how many builders are decreasing their housing costs because of this? Right. Approximately zero. Speaking of builders and houses, I sent you, Ben, over the weekend, a screenshot of a couple of homes listed in my neighborhood. it is i mean those are these are split levels houses built in the i don't know the 60s it's the one that you you always describe for us i'm not going to do it yes it looks but it looks like the the brady bunch home i guess you could say uh 2300 square feet being what were they 950 or something 979 i mean i don't know what they're gonna get but they're gonna go for over 900 and it's a travesty.

33:08It really is. Those houses. So this is a long time ago at this point, but when my mother died and we sold the house in 2011, we sold it for, I think, 475. You sold at the bottom, man. We really did. But whatever. But these houses should be, I don't know, I'm making this up, 700? And the people who are buying them, you feel bad for because it's like, they're at the stage in life where they buy a home and you can't say like, what are you doing, idiot. It's like, listen, we want or need to buy a home. So we're going to pay the going rate. That's the Jeremy Irons one, right? Yeah. We're selling to willing buyers at the willing rate or whatever.

33:48All right. Economy stuff. Matthew Klein had some good stuff for the overshoot. I just want to mention inflation rate has been sub 4 % for almost a year now. Surprising, correct? Like the, it's the volatility of it has, has gone away, which is, I think, interesting. So Matthew Klein says the best inflation hedge is a job. And he shows disposable personal income, consumer spending, and wage income only. And these three things, especially the last three years or so, just follow each other. So if you want to know why there's been more spending in retail sales, it's because people are making more money.

34:22But he says wages are starting to roll over a little bit. This is another good sign for inflation. And so he plots wages versus the PCE price index. And wages have slowly started to roll over a little bit. And again, I think this is another good sign for people worried about inflation sticking around and shooting back higher. Yeah, this is the thing. Yeah, so the thing is wages are inflation in a lot of ways. I mean, it's a chicken and the egg problem, but yeah. Black Friday savings are here at the Home Depot, which means it's time to add new cordless power to your collection. Right now, when you buy a select battery kit from one of our top brands like Ryobi or Milwaukee, you'll get a select tool from that same brand for free.

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35:41Make your next cocktail with Tito's. Distilled and bottled by Fifth Generation Inc. Austin, Texas. 40 % alcohol by volume. Savor responsibly. Talman Swift tweeted, Torsten Slock with some more cool weekend charts. Inflation-adjusted pandemic savings are up big time for the middle class. In percentage terms, these folks that didn't get the 20 % raises or$15 an hour folks did fine, but between savings and smaller percentage bumps on much bigger base salaries, they're fine. So... I would love to see these numbers non-inflation-adjusted as well because it would show a huge increase in savings because right add 20 on these yeah but i guess yeah this thing people are worried like when are they going to spend their savings down and still i don't know i think this is the trigger point like this is the thing that people don't like to hear it's like no no net of inflation real wages are up and i mean there's there's caveats of course you know like it's not evenly distributed but that's the data yes all right headline from business insider the u.s economy is already in a recession and it's following the same path as China by becoming reliant on debt, veteran forecaster says, I didn't even need to click through the article to realize this.

36:53Okay. Here's my wall street translation. Veteran forecaster equals this person is very confident, but almost always wrong. And I, is that fair? It's, it's so funny. You mentioned that I, um, I listened to the entire Berkshire, all six hours of it over the weekend because I was all over the place for sporting activities. And it was so cold this weekend. I'm complaining. It's not relevant. So I had one AirPod in. So you're watching T-Ball listening to Warren Buffett. Literally true. That's actually a factual statement. So Berkshire sold 13 million shares of Apple. I forget what they're saying. 15 % of their position.

37:34And somebody tweeted, just as I suspected, just about Apple shares. And this was a person that I was like, wait, who is this person? This name sounds so familiar. And it's a person that's been bearish literally for as long as I can remember. And I Googled this person just to see. And there was a video in 2013, just like uber bearish on the stealth recession, whatever, whatever. And it's just amazing. It's not amazing. And we know why, but that there are actual people like this that are out there in the real world, just only seeing the glass as half on fire. And not to get too deep into the psychology of Uber bears, but what is this?

38:16Just the way that they were raised, their childhood? The internet and the great financial crisis and the pandemic. Those three things. Yeah. All right. Tracy Allaway, this is one of the great things about Twitter. You take the bad with the good, but here's one of the great things. So she tweeted, what just happened to construction jobs? So construction jobs collapsed. And Daniel replied, the real answer is most likely a boring one, volatility in survey data, especially for an industry cut of Jolt's openings, for an industry with a history of that volatility and Jolt's data. And then Nick Bunker said, plus one to what Daniel said, construction postings are showing a much smoother moderation and are still elevated.

38:59So the fact that like, obviously, a lot of misinformation and bullshit and toxicity and et cetera, et cetera. But this is one of the great things is that, you know, you can find the truth if you're looking for it. I like it. Yes. Like there's an outlier here. What's going on? And the good thing is, is that Tracy was asking a question like, what happened? She wasn't saying like, look at this. This is the end of the world. Right. It was like, it was actual question. All right. We talked last week about how older people are doing really well. Axios did one for average wealth for Americans under the age of 40.

39:32And household wealth for those under 40 is up 49 % from pre-pandemic levels, according to new analysis from the left-leaning Center for American Progress. Look at the dip this thing took from 2005 to 2010. It was basically cut in half. This is why, like, millennials versus Gen Z for who has it worse. Is this the stock market? Well, that was, back then, was the housing market. Oh. Right? Well. But. Okay. So what's the takeaway here? Young people are doing better than most people think, but they're still have a right to be angry because of the housing market. How's that? Yeah, fair. So I was driving in the car and Logan wakes me up, my four-year-old, and he says, daddy, print me something.

40:17So we're driving back home. And what did he say? Oh, he just randomly goes like out of nowhere, daddy. I'm like, yes. He goes, can stormtroopers talk? so we get home and he goes print me Darth Vader with stormtroopers so I went to mid journey and I typed in a coloring page this is exactly what I typed in a coloring page of Darth Vader with stormtroopers and 15 seconds later this popped up with three other ones that and so now they're like obsessed with this print me Bowser fighting Optimus Prime time that's the the crazy thing about kids is growing up in an on-demand world of play this song we went when we went to our airbnb in florida for spring break there was no alexa and my son is shouting hey alexa and i'm like george there's no alexa here stop stop yelling for alexa and like everything is on demand for them it is interesting and to see them when when they can't get it but that it's just going to keep happening yeah um all right let's talk about crypto for a second Jim Bianco posted a good thread.

41:24He said, a Citi study shows that investment advisors hold 35 % of all ETFs. The table shows the four largest Bitcoin ETFs, investment advisors hold less than 1 % of the new Bitcoin ETFs. Well, that's really surprising to me. So I'm sort of confused here because people are saying that May 15th is the date that 13 Fs are do for Q1. So I'm not sure where this data is coming from, but let's just go with it. So the ultimate point that Bianca is making is that these are not people that are buy-in holders. These are people that are chasing on the way up and they're going to panic on the way down. That's really the takeaway, I think, from him.

42:03He says, another sign of DJM retail is the dominant ETF buyer is the average trade size. This is good. This is good stuff. The blue is the average of the Bitcoin ETFs, which is just$14 ,000. That's the average trade size. That's less than half the next smallest, which is, I can't say, what is that? Whatever. So he's comparing the average size of Bitcoin with the average size of LQD, HYG. Basically, the ETF side advisors are predominantly using. So LQD, HYG. My counterpoint would be, don't you think ETF holders in general are stickier, hold for longer? Well, he's saying that the ones that advisors hold are.

42:47There's a chart, a great chart, cumulative and daily flows into all spot Bitcoin ETFs. Black is the price. Blue is the average purchase price. Red is the average purchase price, less GBTC. So he says 58 ,000 is the average purchase price or 10 % below current levels. And his basic premise is that they'll dump at the first sign of trouble. I think that's what he's trying to say. I would like to know what the level is for that. Well, he says there's a wide range for Bitcoin. He's showing 58 ,000 is the average purchase price. Bitcoin as of this morning is 63 ,400. So we get like a 20 % dive. People are gone is what he's saying.

43:25A lot of these people. Yeah. And I don't know. We'll see. He might be right. I'm not sure. Interestingly, BlackRock finally did have their first day of outflows. This is a headline from CoinDesk. Leading record$563 million exit from US spot products. Interestingly, look at this next chart. GBTC daily flows. It's just been an absolute rush for the exits until, I don't know why, maybe this is just a reallocation type of thing and this should be a blip, but there was an inflow last week. What if it's just grayscale executives who made so much money off of the fees? just to screw with people. I doubt that.

44:06Michael Santoli had a good play, good take on Bitcoin. And he's kind of saying like, whatever people insist crypto is, a store of value, a claim on a scarce digital resource, real estate, a fun spec, since mid-2023 is traded purely as the next big thing along with AI play. So he puts Bitcoin and NVIDIA on the same chart and they more or less follow each other. And then he puts MicroStrategy, which is levered Bitcoin, on the same chart as super microcomputers. And they essentially follow each other. So isn't that, at least for now, a good way to think about crypto is that it's just, it's a risk on super beta play.

44:41And that's like the, and it's a way to access that beta at all hours of the day. Right? If you want risk really on, it's in crypto. I think that's a good way to look at it. Fair? Yeah. All right, let's get into real estate. Jay Parsons tweeted this. Interesting stat from Freddie Mac. even with higher rates and sticky prices, first-time homebuyers remain the dominant force in the for-sale housing market, representing 58.2 % of all home sales. I think it's actually purchase applications. But if you look in 2017, it was 56%. 2020, it was 55%. And then in 2024, it's 58%. So regardless of what's happening in the market, you mentioned corporations don't really care about interest rates.

45:23Homebuyers don't really care about interest rates. Would you say that home sellers care more than home buyers, at least now in the current environment? Yes, because home sellers are either with a low mortgage or without a mortgage. So giving that up is very difficult. So I was looking at the numbers here just to think through the supply dynamics. So 1.1 existing million, 1.1 million existing homes for sale right now, right? Out of a population of 336 million and 158 million employees, people employed in the US right now. Okay. In 1999, there was 2.2 existing home sales, double the amount. But there was 278 million people in the population, right?

46:03So 60 million fewer people, and there was 30 million fewer people who actually had a job. So that's like the supply thing. So it's not only that there are fewer homes. There are more people too, which makes this dynamic even harder for people to find a house. But also another wrinkle is people are staying in their homes longer. Yes. So it's just like a dwindling supply, which is not. So someone, last week we talked about 30 returns in stocks, bonds, and cash. Remember I had that chart? Someone said, what about houses? So I pulled up Y charts, case show national home price index. The past 30 years ending 2023, housing prices were up 300 % in the 30 years.

46:47So that's 5 % a year almost, a little less than 5 % a year. Higher or lower than you would have assumed. With the caveat that the returns aren't what you actually experienced when you buy a house. There's leverage and all that stuff. I thought it was interesting. Lance Lambert showed home price growth by decade. He shows the 90s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s. We've essentially pulled forward a decade's worth of gains already. It was wild. What a chart. Wow. Do you think that means is a baseline assumption that prices will kind of stagnate here or kind of follow inflation from here. Would that be a reasonable thing to say?

47:28Or is that too hard to predict? Were house prices too cheap?

47:35Based on demographics and the number we were building and guess. I mean, we could easily just do like a simple adjustment, like the national home price divided by the national income or something like that to maybe like. Well, obviously based on, and I was arguing this for years. Remember I kept saying housing prices based on interest rates where they were are still relatively cheap. Remember people were saying housing prices were expensive before we had this whole thing. Remember having those arguments back in the day, pre-pandemic? No. Okay. I've got the receipt somewhere.

48:0820-city case-chiller price. This is from S &P. February, year over year, housing prices are up 7.3%. So that little blip we had of falling housing price, I think they fell 2%. Wow. Gone. All right. A bunch of people sent me this one. From uncharted territories, it's a substack. The guy says, why I don't invest in real estate. He's making the bear case for housing. So he's showing the real price index going back to the 1870s. It's probably Shiller data. It basically went nowhere on an inflation-adjusted basis until the 50s, and then it skyrocketed from here. He's also showing world population in 1945 has just gone parabolic, right?

48:50We've taken off billions of more people in the world. His whole thinking behind why he's bearish on housing is population is going to slow and that we've been in an aberration for the past 70 or 80 years for housing prices. So is this like a bearish sentiment going out like 50 years or is this a near-term thing? That's the thing. You'd have to think that this is a longer-term play. Right. There's a bunch of other charts in here on population growth and demand and fertility and urbanization. And so this is not like a perma bear account, as far as I can tell. He lays out a bunch of stuff in here that kind of, and I'm still not sure that I buy it.

49:28Because you're right. 50 years out, if population is dwindling or slowing and fertility rates are slowing, I could kind of see it, but I feel like the, the way that we view the housing market has completely changed. Oh, I hear that cling clinking on your hybrid floors. A few people made the case for carpet with us. That's one of them. Remember we said, why would anyone get carpet in their house anymore? Oh, cause my dog. Cause you don't hear your dog like clopping on the floor. I need to know what she is at all times. A few other people said the reason for carpet is they don't want to be cold with their feet when they get out of bed.

50:05That's the reason you get carpet in a bedroom. Okay, that's fair. Not bad. So anyway, what do you think about this as a bare case for housing that population is going to slow? I don't know. I didn't read the article. I don't know. That's a big, big, big topic that I haven't thought much about. I kind of think much like Seinfeld said, the world of money changed in the 80s. The housing market changed too. Like, I don't know. People in the past didn't. It was a whole different ballgame in terms of housing. That's the way I look at it. All right. Here's something I don't buy. Survey of the week. It's been a while.

50:40New DCG poll. Let's say one in five battleground state voters consider crypto a key issue in 2024 elections. I'm sorry. Did Bitcoin do this poll? I mean, my dad has occasionally asked me about Bitcoin. And I mean, for him, it's just, it's who, well, you're, you're in a, you're in a swing state. Is your dad, is your father one of the five? Certainly not. No, maybe I'd love to see the average age of the people I asked with, but yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to say no. All right. We got an email. We asked about refried beans last week. This is interesting. It's a mistranslation of the Spanish verb.

51:26What does that say? Refrar? I can't really read this. Yeah, refrar. It looks like it means refried to English speakers, but it actually means well-cooked. That's pretty good. Mystery solved. All right. We asked about astronauts. Was that last week too? People said Chinese space travelers are called taikonauts from the word space, from the Chinese word space and the Greek word for sailor. Indian ones are called viomonauts who says i i honestly would have assumed literally everyone who goes to space or is in a space program is called an astronaut but why are they called cosmonauts did we get to the bottom of this i all these countries have different words for for an astronaut okay which is kind of funny because space travel is something that was invented in the last 70 years i'm surprised that they didn't all just say like this is the word right we always we always complain about languages.

52:17Like why do we, why are these? Yeah. Well, come on, everyone, astronauts are on the same level here. So I was talking about how Josh said that Kazam was a fake movie and it's actually Shazam was a fake movie. So I got an email, we got an email, something called the Mandela effect, which is this thing that like everyone believes to be true, but it's not. And there's some mind blowing shit in here. Did you take a look at this yet? No. All right. So, so let's go through it together. So I pulled out a bunch. people remember a 90s movie in which Sinbad played a genie right Shazam not a real movie I remember the Shaq one not the Sinbad one okay well all right uh Jiffy peanut butter doesn't exist what do you mean the name of the peanut butter is Jiff oh yeah I guess I knew that you did I thought it's called Jiffy wait there is a jiffy one isn't it google it right now oh okay all right this is a little bit less mind-blowing but still the cereal is called cap in cap in cap in crunch not captain crunch okay i knew that okay hannibal lecter never said hello clarice in silence on the lambs see there's a skippy peanut butter that's a skippy but the hannibal lecter never said hello Clarice.

53:35So people just use that in there. Okay. That makes sense. I can see that. Um, interview it's so, so it's called interview with the vampire, not interview with a vampire.

53:50Okay. I a hundred percent said interview with a vampire. That's not what it's called. I'm sure I did too. That, you know, that movie kind of, that was not like a staying power movie for as big as the actors were in that movie, right? True. Well, it's not a great movie. Luke, I am your father is not a real thing. Okay. Darth Vader never said that. He said, no, I am your father. Did you know that? Okay. Blame that one on Tommy boy. All right. Here's the last one that really blew my face off my head. South America is not actually directly underneath North America. Did you know this? It's way Southeast.

54:24Look, look at this picture. Okay. I guess I've never really thought about it before. But yeah, if you had asked me, I would have been wrong. I pretty much thought it was directly below Mexico and to the left. Okay. That's a pretty good article. All right. You read this one because this is the best email we've gotten in a long time because just nailed it. So somebody said flag football coach. I coach flag football because Ben brought up the different types of sports coaches. Not sure about the other sports, but flag is for a particular type of coach. So the coach that he describes is the coach of my flag football team.

54:56And I love this guy. We've all had this coach. We have this coach too. He's a great coach. All right. Guy who never played a down of football, but has an NFL playbook for the team. It's literally a three ring binder, right? Yeah, literally. This guy always amazes me. Most leagues only allow one or two hours of practice per week. Yet this guy literally calls out 30 different offensive plays in a 50 minute game. What always amazes me is that the kids who are between eight and 13 end up confused or just don't understand. So they all end up running routes, running go routes half the time. And the QB just heaves it up.

55:23If there is one type of person who should not coach, it's this guy. These are not NFL players, and a guy shouldn't get to love his fantasy of being Andy Reid with kids who can't process and comprehend a tenth of what is being thrown at them. All right, so my son is in a six - and seven-year-old league, which we have to retire from for the remainder of the season because he broke his hand. And it's not like he even broke it doing something cool. You know how the kids before practice screw around and pull each other's flags off for 10 minutes? Yes. Like idiots? Yeah. They were doing that, and he fell and broke his hand.

55:51Yeah. That's how Kobe broke his leg. They're playing Sharks and Minnows before the game. The coach for five minutes in the huddle explains the play and then they break the huddle and then he has to explain it again for where to line up. And then it's like, we're going to do a triple reverse here and they end up running. It never works. Just literally put the kids behind the guy with the ball and hand it off. Yeah. Yeah. That's all you need to do. Okay. As promised, parents you see at a youth sporting event. I've got a list here. Oh, man. Okay. I've got a long list. I've done a lot of sports. Okay.

56:20This is probably one of my favorite ones. Just the happy to be here person. they're just there to socialize with their parents they're not really even paying attention to the game they're kind of just chilling okay i kind of like that person i have one foot in that camp except for the socializing part all right the go is really hard the refs people that's a tough look especially when a lot of the refs are like younger kids that's not great um this one my kid is really better than they are like i think my kid is better than they are and so you're constantly complaining about the coaching oh so like if the if the kid is striking out it's like he was hitting great all week he was hitting great all week yes uh the other side of this is the the parents who really do have the best player on the team and constantly brag about them like listen we know your kid is the best player you don't need to reinforce it right this is a good one and i don't mean to stereotype but this is a lot of moms the parent who doesn't know the rules because i never played the game before like what is that and someone has to explain like actually that's that's how it yeah uh okay the jerk who always comments on other kids play right like if someone and you like if the kid kicks into the wrong soccer goal and they go oh you can't do that right uh there's obviously the parent who lives vicariously through their kid because they were never good at sports uh the dad who tries to make jokes at other people's expenses that like rarely lands right like the parents don't really know each other they kind of know each other i mean at the games uh there's a tailgating parent who has like the best setup of chairs and like tents and stuff right like they go way all out, like the benches out the ass.

57:48Wait, hold on. To that part, have you ever seen the chair inside a little tent? Like a personal tent? Oh, yes. Like your single, yes. And it just gets in everyone's way. For when it rains? For when it rains? That's a good tent. All right. The coaching your kid from the sideline? Like, Timmy, center it! Center it! So I experienced that big time for lacrosse this weekend. There's parents that yell the entire time at the kid. The kid clearly cannot hear them, and they're just screaming. yes the entire time at a seven-year-old yes yes and the going too hard on your own kid is a bad one too like that's just like that like you cringe at that like what are you doing what are you doing yeah uh okay i get this occasionally secretly terrified your kid is going to be the one to mess up like if they're on a pretty good team you're just like just don't mess up just like don't be the one who screws it up i think and mine is like i i was probably way too hard on my daughter when she like or too into it and now that like i've got three kids doing this and i've seen come up like I'm the I don't care about the outcome I just care about my kid like if they like are not screwing up and they're trying their hardest that's all I care about yeah I'm a few years behind you so I think that like with the seven-year-olds it's just like not that serious I don't think there's there's not too many psychotic parents yet I'm sure I know it's coming but that's true right yes I we've started to get into that as we do like club soccer and stuff but at this point it's just cute and fun you know yes all right Rex Ben what do you got by the way good list.

59:13Credit to you. Yeah. They had an Albert Brooks profile on Atlantic about how he is the godfather of Rarigan comedy, which is interesting. And you would never really think of him that way, but they said he's repeatedly turned down various Hollywood luminaries who asked him to star in their films. Parts that went to Tom Hanks, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, and Steve Martin. And in several cases, all the destructive of their career. He was offered the role in Big, When Harry Met Sally, and Dead Poets Society. Oh, wow. And I guess just didn't want it for whatever reason. Okay, I finished Fallout, which again was a Josh recommendation for us on Amazon.

59:47I really liked it. There was enough mystery that I'm excited for season two. It could have been one season show potentially. And I was surprised how much I liked this show. It felt like a movie that was made into a TV show. Okay, eight episodes? Yeah, my wife and I flew through this one. Okay, I mentioned Sugar before, which is the Colin Farrell one on Apple. Nobody's watching Apple. Next. No, well, I got to talk about this. for the three people who watch this show. Spoiler alert, if you're watching this show, all three of you. Wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. Before you spoil it, is this a show that I might be interested in?

1:00:20No, because I'm going to explain it to you. So if you're going to watch the show, turn this off now because, okay, so. Pause, pause, pause. Let people get their phone in their pocket. All right, go ahead. So Colin Farrell, and I'm a big detective guy, private detective. I read all the private detective books. So it had all that stuff. It was like a noir kind of show. And he is really into movies and he likes to drink and he's kind of mysterious. And it's like, oh, he's looking for a film producer's long lost or lost granddaughter. And there's all this stuff going on. And like the plot is like kind of like, yeah, it's kind of seen this before.

1:00:50At the end of the last episode, the sixth episode, he's kind of this mysterious guy who think he's like this part of like a global spy network. And this is like his thing. He takes a shot into his neck. And the reveal is, again, this is literally just a private detective show for six episodes. The big reveal is he's an alien. what i kid you not the biggest w2f tv show reveal i've ever experienced that's where i left this show off was it did you like it he turned like green and blue did you like it or did he laugh i i i was i don't know what my reaction is i have to watch it now but it's i'm like that's a choice okay very crazy all right one more my son after he broke his hand we're watching Netflix movies all day.

1:01:38He likes crappy action movies. So we put on the Great Wall for him on Netflix. Don't think I've ever heard of it. 2015-ish maybe? It bombed. But it was Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, who's the This Is Us guy, been in a bunch of stuff, and then Willem Dafoe. So pretty good cast, right? It's like a mythic, legendary tale of monsters that attack the Great Wall of China back in the day. And I guess this is just a good reminder that even really good, talented people can make really crappy stuff because it is awful. Pedro Pascal is not on. This is us. What do you think? What's the show called? The apocalyptic one.

1:02:15What's it called? We're old. Yes. Last of us. Last of us. Okay. Close enough. I rewatched on the flight. By the way, one thing that I didn't say about Los Angeles, the traffic, the traffic is out of control and for no reason, not for no reason. so we're it's a parking lot and there's traffic in new york city and there's traffic in a lot of cities but not like this where it's literally like that's why the weather wears off because the traffic the traffic feelings you get are worse than the weather feelings are good not true but i get it uh traffic's traffic's traffic is one of the my biggest pain points in life i i wouldn't be able to handle constant traffic all the time oh it's miserable so why was there so much traffic because a guy was getting a ticket.

1:03:03Now, I was joking about this with Michelle, busting her chops. Michelle is our advisor in Los Angeles. And she's like, well, did you look? Like, well, of course I looked. I was going a mile an hour. I had to look. You know who I blame? You blame the people in front who first started to look. You blame the top 10 % of the, the first 10 % of the traffic causers. It's their fault. If you're in the back, what are you going to not look at a principal? People can't help it. We really can't help it. Just keep driving. It's the other thing where you see an accident on the other side of the highway, and it slows your side of the highway.

1:03:34Yeah. That I get. Listen, accidents, if there's multiple, but for a person - No, I'm saying if it's on the other side of the median. It doesn't even impact you. Yeah, I get it. No, you look. You look. Yeah, but you don't slow down. Eh, a little bit. Okay. Rotten Tomatoes released the highest rated movies of all time. Now, this is as reviewed and selected by Rotten Tomatoes critics and users, and we know how the tomato meter works, all right? So don't at us. We understand. let's just run through the top 10. Ooh, LA Confidential is number one. That is a great movie. I mean, number one is nuts. Very good movie.

1:04:07I wouldn't put it in a great category. But it sort of makes sense because who wouldn't vote this as a great movie? You know what I mean? Like it's like, I think what this list means - It's not controversial. What this list is measuring is just, these are unanimous great movies. Okay. Right? All right. Number two, The Godfather. Number three, Casablanca. Could you just watch Casablanca already? I watched half of it. I couldn't make it through it. I can't. Old movies, I can't do it. Like, eh, I couldn't do it. Sorry. Seven Samurai? I never heard of that movie. That's from 1954. Parasite, Schindler's List, Top Gun Maverick.

1:04:39Okay. Toy Story 2, Chinatown, and Rounding Out number 10 is On the Waterfront. Again, a 1954 movie. I feel like you can't retroactively rate these movies. Because the only people who'd rate movies from the 50s or 40s are people who really love them. So you can't. Those don't count. That's a good point. You're right there. All right. I rewatched. So I saw once upon a time in Hollywood when it came out five years ago and I ate an edible, um, which was my mistake hand up because it's not the type of movie that I thought it was. And I'm, I'm, I have a low tolerance. I'm like a 2.5 milligram guy. And I think I might've done five.

1:05:12So I was a little bit zonked and the movie was just slow. I don't think I've ever heard a good story about edibles before. Like I took just the right amount and I had a great time. You never hear that story. 2.5 is just the right amount for me. For me, I have a low tolerance. And so it just wasn't what I expected. I was miscalibrated. And I just, I didn't get it. I didn't enjoy it at all. I rewatched it on the flight, having just come from Los Angeles. Like, you know what? Let me fire this up. And now that my expectations were reset to the proper calibration, I really, really enjoyed it. Sometimes it takes some time for the movies to sink in, right?

1:05:44Yeah, what a hell of a cast. Oh my goodness. I love that movie. I think it's great. Late Night with the Devil. Ben, punch this up. I got a lot of emails when this movie came out. That sounds like a Michael Batnick movie. Are you seeing this? Of course I'm seeing this. So this actor is phenomenal. What's his name? He's a big that guy, but he's better than that guy. David, I don't know how to pronounce his name. Das Malkian? He looks like he should be in a horror movie. But you know this guy. He's been in a million things. So this movie was interesting, effective, worth watching, but I'm just not sure.

1:06:18It's Tyrese Maxey in the front, Tobias Harris in the back. I'm just not sure. and these sort of movies are very difficult to land the plane on. But if you're a horror fan, it's on Shudder. Is it a great movie? No, it's not. But would I recommend it if you're a horror fan? Yeah, good enough. Lastly, speaking of horror. You need to have two, like Rotten Tomatoes has their own scale, critics and fans. There need to be a Michael Batnick scale of like an actual decent movie regular people would see versus like the deranged movies that you watch. No, but I do that. I do that. I do that. I adjust. Like I said, like Barbarian, like you don't need to be a big horror fan to enjoy Barbarian.

1:06:53Right. You and all your degenerates that email us in all these times with these crazy movies. Like you guys have your own movie scale over here. Talk to us. You don't need to be a big horror fan to love Talk to Us. Did you see that movie? Or Talk to Me? No. Great movie. Okay. Another great movie that you probably need to be a horror fan, I guess. I don't know. This is borderline because it's pretty demented. Did you see Hereditary? You've seen Hereditary. No. What? Horror movies just don't do it for me. No, personal preference. I don't, whatever. Doesn't do it. Um, I, I, I, I only had the reaction cause I, I swore I thought you did, but Hereditary.

1:07:24Uh, I think it was on TV and I was just, I just caught like 20 minutes and it's been a while since I saw it. What a great movie. What a great movie. A great movie or a great demented movie. No, it's a great movie. That's why we need a scale. Okay. It's a great movie. Hard stop. The hardest of hard stops. All right. We went in an hour 11, man. We covered a lot. Good times. You're happy right now. You got a lot of your Knicks gear on. Are you just wearing around town smiling at all the Knicks fans? I love it. Listen, I never got on a thing now. I never left. Like during the dark years of Jerome James and Eddie Curry and the Zach Randolph years and the Marbury and then Steve Francis and the Jared Jeffries years and the Bargnani years and through it all, I never stopped.

1:08:05Like were there seasons where I probably only saw 60 games instead of 80? Yeah, but I never left. So it's been, my dad took me to the garden when I was, I think, probably seven years old for the first time, six or seven. So I've been going to Knicks fans for 30 years, and it's been 30 years of just pure, pure shit. Just nothing to look forward to. You were a buy and hold investor through the last decades. Decades. So I don't know what this is like. Like game six, when we beat Philly, like that wasn't fun. It was just a lot of anxiety. It was stress, and I've never felt that as a Knicks fan. So these are new feelings, and I'm enjoying the ride.

1:08:43I can't wait until we hear a story in two months about how your ticket broker stole all your money but until then Animal Spirits at the Compound wait what is it? Animal Spirits at the Compound News.com personal emails, personal responses thank you for listening, we will see you next time